Related papers: Minimally sufficient structures for information-fe…

A number of coordinated behaviors have been proposed for achieving specific tasks for multi-robot systems. However, since most applications require more than one such behavior, one needs to be able to compose together sequences of behaviors…

This paper presents policy-based motion planning for robotic systems. The motion planning literature has been mostly focused on open-loop trajectory planning which is followed by tracking online. In contrast, we solve the problem of path…

When robots share the same workspace with other intelligent agents (e.g., other robots or humans), they must be able to reason about the behaviors of their neighboring agents while accomplishing the designated tasks. In practice,…

Applications of safety, security, and rescue in robotics, such as multi-robot target tracking, involve the execution of information acquisition tasks by teams of mobile robots. However, in failure-prone or adversarial environments, robots…

Robotic systems are more present in our society everyday. In human-robot environments, it is crucial that end-users may correctly understand their robotic team-partners, in order to collaboratively complete a task. To increase action…

In this paper, we present a planning framework that uses a combination of implicit (robot motion) and explicit (visual/audio/haptic feedback) communication during mobile robot navigation. First, we developed a model that approximates both…

The representation of the knowledge needed by a robot to perform complex tasks is restricted by the limitations of perception. One possible way of overcoming this situation and designing "knowledgeable" robots is to rely on the interaction…

Here we consider the communications tactics appropriate for a group of agents that need to "swarm" together in a highly adversarial environment. Specfically, whilst they need to cooperate by exchanging information with each other about…

Robots built from soft materials will inherently apply lower environmental forces than their rigid counterparts, and therefore may be more suitable in sensitive settings with unintended contact. However, these robots' applied forces result…

An important question in the field of AI is the extent to which successful behaviour requires an internal representation of the world. In this work, we quantify the amount of information an optimal policy provides about the underlying…

In applications such as search and rescue or disaster relief, heterogeneous multi-robot systems (MRS) can provide significant advantages for complex objectives that require a suite of capabilities. However, within these application spaces,…

End-to-end learning of robot control policies, structured as neural networks, has emerged as a promising approach to robotic manipulation. To complete many common tasks, relevant objects are required to pass in and out of a robot's field of…

This paper addresses a safe planning and control problem for mobile robots operating in communication- and sensor-limited dynamic environments. In this case the robots cannot sense the objects around them and must instead rely on…

This paper addresses the problem of optimal control of robotic sensing systems aimed at autonomous information gathering in scenarios such as environmental monitoring, search and rescue, and surveillance and reconnaissance. The information…

Machine learning provides a powerful tool for building socially compliant robotic systems that go beyond simple predictive models of human behavior. By observing and understanding human interactions from past experiences, learning can…

To construct models of large, multivariate complex systems, such as those in biology, one needs to constrain which variables are allowed to interact. This can be viewed as detecting "local" structures among the variables. In the context of…

Interactions within human societies are usually regulated by social norms. If robots are to be accepted into human society, it is essential that they are aware of and capable of reasoning about social norms. In this paper, we focus on how…

Accurately assessing the potential value of new sensor observations is a critical aspect of planning for active perception. This task is particularly challenging when reasoning about high-level scene understanding using measurements from…

Designing robots capable of traversing uneven terrain and overcoming physical obstacles has been a longstanding challenge in the field of robotics. Walking robots show promise in this regard due to their agility, redundant DOFs and…

Various hypotheses exist about the paths used for communication between the nodes of complex networks. Most studies simply suppose that communication goes via shortest paths, while others have more explicit assumptions about how routing…